Oral Tradition, 12/2 (1997): 249-278
From the Griot of Roots to the Roots of Griot:
A New Look at the Origins of a Controversial
African Term for Bard
Thomas A. Hale
Introduction
The spread of the word griot during the last two decades from its role
as a regional descriptor for a certain kind of West African bard to global
usage in an extraordinary range of media is the result of many factors. The
1976 Roots phenomenon introduced 1.5 million readers and 130 million
viewers to the image of the griot (Pace 1992, Anonymous 1977). Today,
griots perform at a variety of venues in cities such as Paris, London, New
York, and Tokyo, as well as at hundreds of universities around the world.
They are now having an impact on such diverse musical styles as rock, rap,
and even modern symphonic music.
The on-line LEXIS/NEXIS
Information System available to data users at many sites worldwide lists
over 1,500 citations containing the word griot in newspapers and other
publications. Many of them refer to African American musicians,
storytellers, and elders who increasingly are being compared to griots. For
example, the National Association of Black Storytellers gave Mary Carter
Smith the title “Mother Griot” at the 1994 National Festival of Black
Storytelling (Smith 1996). But griot is not limited to the African diaspora.
The author Studs Terkel, whose writings are based largely on oral
interviews, now compares his work to that of a griot (Heinen 1995).
But the positive connotations associated with griots outside of their
continent of origin mask an enormous ambivalence to the term for many
West Africans, especially those who live in the cities of the Sahel and
Savanna region—Dakar, Senegal; Bamako, Mali; and Niamey, Niger. One
reason for this ambivalence is fear of the power of words spoken or sung by
griots (Hoffman 1990, 1995). Another is an ancient tradition that marks
them as a separate people categorized all too simplistically as members of a
“caste,” a term that has come under increasing attack as a distortion of the
social structure in the region. In the worst case, that difference meant
250
THOMAS A. HALE
burial for griots in trees rather than in the ground in order to avoid polluting
the earth (Conrad and Frank 1995:4-7). Today, although these traditions are
changing, griots and people of griot origin still find it very difficult to marry
outside of the group of artisans to which they belong. Finally, griot behavior
is marked by a freedom to speak loudly, to sing, dance, and demand gifts of
others. To describe a boisterous friend as acting like a griot is to offer an
insult.
Yet ever since the first griot was clearly documented in writing by the
fourteenth-century Berber traveler Ibn Battuta (French Batoutah; 1859), we
find that they have served as respected advisors to rulers, as tutors for
princes, and as diplomats in delicate negotiations. Today, in spite of the
seeming negativity associated with griots, West Africans at home and abroad
give them gifts ranging from money to automobiles, houses, air tickets to
Mecca, and, if they have nothing else, the clothing off their own backs. In
one case, a wealthy fan of a griotte gave the woman a small airplane (Hale
1994). The most talented griots travel with presidents and serve as
spokespersons. When a great griot dies, he or she may receive a state
funeral or, in the case of Ban Zoumana Sissoko in Mali and Tinguizi in
Niger, appear on a postage stamp.
The paradox bound up in the insult and honor associated with the
word griot generates many questions. For a forthcoming study (1998) of
griots and their female counterparts, griottes, I sought answers by focussing
on their history, training, social status, verbal art, music, rewards, and use of
technology. But at the root of any research on griots lies a deep-seated
ambiguity surrounding the term by which they are known around the world
today. This ambiguity stems not only from the mixed reception that griots
receive at home, but also from two other factors: first, a widespread belief
among scholars that the word griot is not of African origin, and, second, a
lack of knowledge about the geographical extent of the griot world in West
Africa. The result for modern researchers is doubt about whether or not to
use griot or a local word to denote these multi-functional performers. The
purpose here is to propose a solution to the problem of which term to use by
focussing on both the etymology of griot and the local nomenclature for
these artisans of the word in the various peoples of the Sahel and Savanna
region. The result will be a new theory for the origin of the term, a better
understanding of the cultural diversity it represents, and a clearer idea of the
geography of the griot world in West Africa.
Often described simply as “praise-singers” because singing praises is
the most obvious and audible function they perform, griots and griottes
actually contribute to their own societies in so many other ways that
“praise-singer” becomes a far too limited description. For example, they
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
251
are also historians, genealogists, advisors, spokespersons, diplomats,
interpreters, musicians, composers, poets, teachers, exhorters, town criers,
reporters, and masters of or contributors to a variety of ceremonies (naming,
initiation, weddings, installations of chiefs, and so on). Although griots are
born into their profession, they do not all perform all of these functions,
some of which are gender-specific or not as actively practiced today as they
were centuries ago. Furthermore, many people of griot origin inevitably
choose a different path in life (see Panzacchi 1994).
Societies that count griots among their various professions, however,
have their own words to describe them: iggio (Moor), guewel or géwél
(Wolof), mabo or gawlo (Fulbe), jali (Mandinka), jeli (Maninka, Bamana),
geseré or jaaré (Soninké), jeseré (Songhay), and marok’i (Hausa), not to
mention a variety of other terms. Within a particular language group or
culture there are other non-hereditary performers, such as hunters and
Muslim clerics, who operate in some ways like griots to meet the needs of
certain groups. The multiplicity of terms for hereditary griots across the
Sahel and Savanna zones of West Africa reveals individual ethnic identities,
cultural diffusion from one people to another over an apparently long period
of time, and diversity in the variety of these bards within a particular society.
In some cases, this fluid nomenclature leads to considerable ambiguity. This
is especially evident where the griot profession overlaps with other activities
and also when the notion of profession shades into ethnicity. The simplicity
of griot and the complexity evident in these other terms is a major source of
the debate, more often articulated orally than in print, about which word to
use, griot or a more specific term such as jali.
Origins of griot
One reason for this debate is that no one has ever clearly documented
the origin of griot in an African language.
Travelers, colonial
administrators, and scholars have advanced many theories to explain its
etymology in European and African languages. It would require far more
space than a single article to describe these different theories. In what
follows, however, I will cite briefly most of them before developing in
greater detail the one I think is most promising.
The first appearance of the modern ancestor of griot was the French
word guiriot, employed by Alexis de St. Lô, a Capucin missionary monk
who traveled along the Senegambian coast of West Africa in 1634-35 and
published his Relation du Voyage du Cap-Verd in 1637. Michel Jajolet de
La Courbe, the French director of the Compagnie du Sénégal, used the term
252
THOMAS A. HALE
frequently in a lengthy narrative about the first of his three tours of duty in
northern Senegal from 1685 to 1710. At one point, however, guiriot shifts
to griot, but this is perhaps the result of a typographical error generated
when the manuscript was edited and published in 1913 by Cultru.
Theories of the origin of the term in French emerged a century later in
1778 when Le Brasseur, a colonial administrator in West Africa, explained
in a note in a report to a French admiral that
[a] grillot is a species of negro actor whose theatrical costume resembles
that of Harlequin. He has two or three hundred rattles [grelots] attached to
his legs and belt, and makes them move when he is on stage with a variety
and a cadence that would not shock the most delicate ear . . . . The grillots
are liked and despised by people just like actors in Europe. They are not
even looked upon as members of society, and they can only marry among
themselves. (1778:27, my translation)
Le Brasseur’s definition of the term is based on the phonemic similarity of
two French words, grillot and grelot, but, coming as it does 150 years after
guiriot first appears in the writings of St. Lô, it seems to be an isolated
etymology that does not lead anywhere.
In the nineteenth century, Bérenger-Féraud proposed the Wolof term
gueroual or guewoual for griot (1882). More recently, the Nigerian scholar
Oumarou Watta (1985) suggested that griot comes from a Fulbe term,
gawlo. Both the Wolof and Fulbe terms bear some similarities to griot, but
more linguistic evidence is needed to make the case for them as sources.
The American linguist Charles Bird has suggested that griot comes
from an early form of the Mandé word for griot that might have been heard
as gerio by the French (1971:16-17).
This view is contested by the
historian David Conrad, who argues that the French had relatively little
contact with people farther inland who use the modern form of that term, jeli
(1981:8-9).
The French scholar Henri Labouret has proposed a Portuguese source,
“criado ‘[one] who has been nourished, raised, educated, who lives in the
house of the master’; and thus in a broader sense ‘domestic, dependent
client, preferred client’” (l951:56, my translation). Labouret’s theory has
some basis in the fact that the Portuguese arrived in West Africa long before
the French, and that Portuguese was spoken along the coast from Senegal
southward for some distance.
There is also an obvious link between loud verbal expression and a
Portuguese family of words based on the verb gritar, “to shout.” It includes
grito (a shout), gritalhao (a person who shouts a lot), gritador (a person or
place that is the source of much shouting), and gritaria (many shouts at
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
253
once). Tempting as a theory built upon these words may be, there remains a
perplexing question: if gritar is the source of griot, why would the French
adopt a variant of that particular term from Portuguese, and not judeu, the
word used by Portuguese and Portuguese creole-speakers for five centuries
in West Africa? Judeu, “Jew” in Portuguese, dates to 1506 (Fernandes
1951), preceding by l30 years the l637 use of guiriot by St. Lô. It is still
employed today in Guinea-Bissau in both standard Portuguese and in
Portuguese creole, where it has become jidiu or djidiu. The reference here to
Jews is rooted in a complex network of local knowledge about this minority
in both Europe and Africa.
In Morocco, Mauritania, and neighboring areas during the Middle
Ages, Jews who worked as metalsmiths were perceived to have special
powers. Charles Monteil has advanced the thesis that metalsmiths and griots
in this region came from Black populations that had converted to Judaism in
part because of the gold trade (1951:287-88). Persecuted by Muslims, Jews
had fled the Maghreb and descended into Mauritania where they converted
Blacks to Judaism. Later, fleeing the Muslim Almoravids who were
building an empire based in Morocco, they crossed the border into
Senegambia and left archaeological traces as far inland as Tendirma, just
upriver from Timbuktu (Camara 1976:80-83). It is quite possible that the
Portuguese were aware of these communities and their activities, and
therefore based their description of griots as Jews on more than simply
observation of apparent social discrimination against them by other
members of society. Judeu, the Portuguese word for griot, might then have
evolved into the early French guiriot by the beginning of the seventeenth
century.
More than one hundred and thirty years separate the Moravian writer
Fernandes, who used judeu in l506 in his compilation of travel information,
Description de la Côte d’Afrique, from St. Lô, who employed guiriot in
l637—time enough for much linguistic change. When the French arrived in
Africa in the early seventeenth century, jidiu might have evolved into guiriot
as the channels of communication between Portuguese Creole-speaking
Africans and French travelers developed.
As early as the Portuguese were in exploring West Africa, however,
they did not have as much contact with the region, especially with North
West Africa, as did the Spanish, whose contacts predate the invasion of
Spain in 711 by Arab and Berber armies. Africans came to Spain
throughout the Middle Ages via several routes: trade across the Sahara and
the Mediterranean to Gilbraltar and other ports, through direct importation
by slavers who landed along the West and North West coast, especially
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and through the Canary Islands.
254
THOMAS A. HALE
Africans were so well known in southern Spain in the sixteenth
century that they often appear not only in the literature of the time but also in
other cultural activities that they brought with them. African influence is
evident in a variety of vocabulary, including the guirigay, a dance popular in
Seville in the sixteenth century (Ortiz 1924:246). The word entered the
Spanish of this time to mean language that is obscure and difficult to
understand (Ortiz 1924:246). It is possible that Spanish travelers invented
this term to portray what they saw as the unintelligible song and bizarre
dance of griots. The word for griot today in Spanish is guiriote, and this
may well have been inspired by the seventeenth-century French term guiriot,
or it may have developed from guirigaray. But more evidence is needed to
follow this path.
Between West Africa and Europe, the Berber-speaking region marked
by later Arabic influences constitutes a large zone of cultural diffusion that
influences neighboring peoples on both sides. The French Africanist
Vincent Monteil has suggested that griot came from the Berber iggio, or
iggiw or iggow (1968:777-78). The British researcher H. T. Norris rejected
Monteil’s view of the Berber origin of iggiw when he asserted that the term
comes from “communities across the [Senegal] river. It is gêwel in Wolof
and gawlo in Toucouleur” (1968:53).
Norris’s view finds support in the research of another French scholar,
Michel Guignard, who studied the music of Moors and traced part of their
musical tradition to Blacks. In the Arab-Berber world, he explains, there are
no performers who fulfill the many roles of the griot, although one does find
musicians, singers, and poets, as well as people who do all of these
activities. If the same kinds of performers are found in Moor society, they
are distinct from the iggawen, who are the only ones to play the lute as well
as carry out the psychological and social functions that set them apart from
other musicians. Guignard suggests that the griots may have come from the
south, and adds that this hypothesis matches the belief of many Moors who
trace the genealogies of their musicians either to Blacks or to Arabs. Black
influence on Moor music is very ancient and, notes Guignard, continues to
this day (1975:178-79).
Whether the origin of iggio is North African or West African, the link
between these two regions is clear. The focus of the etymological search on
the frontier between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa has directed
attention to the dialects of Arabic in Mauritania, Morocco, and Algeria, as
well as to the Berber influence on them. Charry has proposed that griot
comes from the Arabic term qawal, or singer, via the Wolof guewel
(1992:66-67). He sees a similarity between griot and iggiw (Hassaniya
Arabic), gewel (Wolof), and gaulo (Fulbe):
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
255
The Arabic root q-w-l essentially concerns speech. Some of the
definitions given in dictionaries of medieval Arabic are virtual job
descriptions of griots:
‘he spoke in verse . . . poeticized . . . good in speech
. . . loquacious . . . copious in speech . . . eloquent . . .the
man who talks too much’ (Lane 1956:supplement 2995).
‘Man of the spoken word . . . singer . . . traveling
poet . . . improviser . . . to recite verse that one has
composed oneself’ (Dozy 1967:II, 420-21).
Charry’s tantalizing hypothesis tying qawal to griot via gewel/gawlo/iggiw
is based on the relationship between gewel and griot proposed by BérengerFéraud a century earlier. But that link is much less persuasive than the
qawal/guewel etymology that leads up to it.
There is another source in Arabic that I believe offers the most
promising path to the roots of griot: guinea, one of the oldest and most
widely used geographical terms in West Africa. In a long note in his study
on the fourteenth-century kingdoms of the Moors, Bovill explains the origin
of guinea (1995:116):
The name Guinea is usually said to have been a corrupt form of the name
Ghana, picked up by the Portuguese in the Maghrib. The present writer
finds this unacceptable. The name Guinea has been in use both in the
Maghrib and in Europe long before Prince Henry’s time. For example, on
a map dated about 1320 by the Genoese cartographer Giovanni di
Carignano, who got his information about Africa from a fellowcountryman in Sijilmas [ancient trading city in North Africa], we find
Gunuia, and in the Catalan atlas of 1375 as Ginyia. A passage in Leo
[Africanus] (vol. III, 822) points to Guinea having been a corrupt form of
Jenne [2,000 year old city in central Mali on Niger river], less famous than
Ghana but nevertheless for many centuries famed in the Maghrib as a
great market and a seat of learning. The relevant passage reads: “The
Kingdom of Ghinea . . . called by the merchants of our nation Gheneoa, by
the natural inhabitants thereof Genni and by the Portugals and other
people of Europe Ghinea.” But it seems more probable that Guinea
derives from aguinaou, the Berber for Negro. Marrakech [city in
southeastern Morocco] has a gate, built in the twelfth century, called the
Bab Aguinaou, the Gate of the Negro (Delafosse, Haut-Sénégal-Niger, II,
277-278). The modern application of the name Guinea to the coast dates
only from 1481. In that year the Portuguese built a fort, São de Mina
(modern day Elmina), on the Gold Coast, and their king, John II, was
permitted by the Pope [Sixtus II or Innocent VIII] to style himself Lord of
Guinea, a title that survived until the recent extinction of the monarchy.
256
THOMAS A. HALE
Through the Spanish guineo, guinea came to be a widely used term to
describe all Black Africans and occurs today in the names of several
countries—Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Equatorial Guinea—as well as the
Gulf of Guinea. Ortiz cites the first use of it in Seville in 1413 (1924:245).
By the early sixteenth century, a period when Spain and its dependencies,
especially the Canary islands, had continuous contact with West Africa, the
term guineo referred both to people from West Africa and to another dance
in southern Spain that was inspired by Africans. Given its widespread use at
the time and its deep roots in Africa, it is quite possible that with a shift from
[n] to [r] guineo served as the origin for what later became in Spanish
guiriote and in French guiriot.
The Berber root for guineo (agenaou, close to iggio and iggiw)
supports the hypothesis that griot is of African, not European origin. We do
not know for certain if it was diffused northward from sub-Saharan Africa
by Black African populations living in southern Mauritania who pre-dated
the arrival of Arabs in the region a thousand years ago, by traveling griots
who associated with the original Berber populations in the region, or by
traders who dealt in gold, slaves, and salt between North Africa and subSaharan Africa. It may even have been transmitted southward from North
Africa to sub-Saharan Africa, as has been suggested by Vincent Monteil.
But other evidence from recent archaeological work in Mali as well as from
studies of music in Morocco support the hypothesis that the term came from
south of the Sahara. That evidence requires a brief digression into the
history of relations between North and sub-Saharan Africa.
Until relatively recently, scholars assumed that the cities of the Sahel
were the product of trade between North Africa and the empires of the
region during the Middle Ages. The work of archaeologists, especially that
of the Americans Roderick and Susan McIntosh at the site of ancient JennéJeno in Mali in the late 1970s and early 1980s (1981), supports the theory
that at least one of those cities has existed for over 2,000 years. Jenné-Jeno
was founded in 250 BCE and by the period 400-800 CE was a major trading
center in the inland delta of the Niger river that lies between Bamako, the
modern capital of Mali, and Timbuktu, an isolated city downstream that is
800 years old. Jenné-Jeno was also a large city for its time. Archaeological
evidence shows that it was surrounded by a two-kilometer walled perimeter.
Traders there dealt in gold imported from sources 800 kilometers to the
south, which was then exported along with other products—food, ivory, and
slaves—northward by caravan and northeastward on the Niger river. As
indicated by Bovill earlier, it was not until the early fourteenth century that
Jenné-Jeno began to appear on European maps.
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
257
This trade expanded considerably in the eighth century with the
introduction of the camel. Slaves and gold were particularly important for
the different dynasties that controlled North Africa and part of Spain during
this period, the Almoravids (1071 to 1147) and the Almohads (1147 to
1248). Black Africans were especially valuable because of their use as both
soldiers in the armies of the sultans and as laborers for the building of cities
and fortresses. One city in particular, Marrakesh in southeastern Morocco,
assumed a dominant role both as a major gateway to trade in sub-Saharan
Africa and as a powerful political center in the region. Youssef ben
Tachfine, appointed by the Almoravid leader Abu Bekr in 1071 to rule
Marrakesh, began to build mosques and barracks for an army of 2,000 Black
slaves. It is not surprising, then, that the importance of trade with subSaharan Africa and the presence of so many Blacks should prompt Sultan el
Mansour, a later Almohad ruler, to order the Bab Agenaou, or Gate of Black
Africans, to be built in 1185. This was the entrance through which flowed
the slaves, gold, and other products from sub-Saharan Africa to the Kasbah,
that part of the city containing the headquarters—the palaces, mosques, and
military barracks—of the vast Almohad empire. From that time on, the
Black African presence in Marrakesh has grown. The flow of slaves
increased considerably after the Moroccan conquest of the Songhay empire
in 1591, and by the time of Sultan Mouley Ishmael a century later (16721727), the regime depended upon not only Arab and Berber forces but also,
and to a much greater extent, on a more reliable army of 150,000 Black
Africans. Slaves continued to be bought and sold in Marrakesh until the
early twentieth century.
The agenaou—the people from Black Africa—who passed through
the Bab Agenaou to serve as soldiers, laborers, and servants were
accompanied not only by gold and ivory but also by their own traditions.
They may have suffered less cultural loss in Morocco than did other
Africans during the Atlantic slave trade that developed several centuries
later in Europe. Although we do not know if the term agenaou originated in
Ghana, the empire to the south that served as a very early sub-Saharan
terminus for the slave trade, or in Jenné-Jeno, the ancient city farther east,
any visitor to Marrakesh today quickly encounters a living clue to the
cultures of these slaves in a group of musicians known as Gnawas.
The Gnawas are not griots. But in both their own collective memory
as well as in that of the people of Morocco, they are of sub-Saharan African
origin. Their presence in Morocco probably precedes the sixteenth-century
date most often given for the creation of the Gnawas, but with the
Moroccan conquest of the Songhay empire in 1591, the flow of slaves
across the desert increased dramatically and probably contributed greatly to
258
THOMAS A. HALE
the growth of what Viviana Pâques calls the “brotherhood of the slaves”
(1991).
Gnawa musicians represent a blending of the musical art of the griot
(and other kinds of musicians) and the healing rituals of sub-Saharan Africa.
Philip Schuyler describes them as a religious brotherhood that “claims
spiritual descent from Bilal al Habashi, an Ethiopian who was the Prophet
Mohammed’s first muezzin,” but adds that “most aspects of Gnawa ritual,
however, clearly come from South of the Sahara” (1981:5).
Their
ceremonies focus on placating spirits that may have brought illness or other
problems and also serve “to prolong a happy relationship with a spirit that
has brought wealth, clairvoyance, or other blessings” (1981:5). They play a
three-stringed instrument called the gambere that is similar in some ways to
the different kinds of lutes common in Senegal, Mali, and Niger; they also
play drums and metal castanets. The Gnawas are best known for the lengthy
and complex derdeba ceremony that leads to trances, spirit possession,
dancing, and pantomime. The music of the Gnawas includes references to
languages and places in sub-Saharan Africa and often contains words that
the singers do not understand today. The link between this brotherhood and
sub-Saharan Africa has therefore survived, but, significantly, in a syncretic
form that contains traces of many cultural activities tied to blacksmiths,
griots, and sorcerers.
The Gnawas, then, are the cultural descendants of the agenaou who
migrated through slavery and trade to North Africa. Their survival today
suggests that agenaou is not simply a Berber term for Black Africans, but a
descriptor that represents a very significant and ancient link between North
and West African cultures. The word agenaou, so deeply imbedded in the
intertwined cultures of the North West African region, was most likely a step
in the process of linguistic change that began with ghana and went on to
gnawa, agenaou, guineo, and guiriot to produce griot.
Two questions remain, one from the beginning, the other from the
end of this long etymological journey: what was the origin of Ghana, the
name attributed to an empire that was also widely known as Wagadu, and
how did guineo become griot? There is no clear answer to either question,
but I propose two plausible hypotheses. For the first, the earliest Arab
sources (Ibn Hawqal, tenth century, and Al-Bakri, eleventh century) report
that Ghana was the name given to the region of the Ghana empire and the
title of its king (Levtzion and Hopkins 1981:52, 79). Although the Soninké
call their empire Wagadu, Levtzion points out that ta-ganat is a word of
Berber origin and means “forest” (1995b). Many archaeologists believe that
a millennium ago southern Mauritania, the land of Ghana, was probably
covered with forest (McIntosh 1995) and constituted, in a broader sense,
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
259
“the forest zone” that lies below the Sahara. Today, in fact, the ruins of a
town called Ghanata lie ten kilometers north of Kumbi-Saleh; and according
to Soninké oral traditions, Ghanata was the name of the capital of the
Soninké empire (Levtzion 1980:25). It may well have been that the two
linked cities described by Al Bekri, the one for the king of Ghana and the
other for Muslim traders, were in fact known as Ghana and Kumbi Saleh.
Yet even if the origin of the term Ghana remains unclear, the evidence
indicates that it has served for the last 1,000 years to designate the first great
empire of the Sahel.
If ghana, gnawa, agenaou, and guineo are stages on the route of a
linguistic itinerary linking West Africa to Spain, then the question of how
the French transformed guineo into guiriot depends on the nature of their
interactions with the Spanish or their neighbors. I believe that griot
probably resulted from contact with Spanish, Portuguese, or Arab navigators
and seamen who knew the North West coast of Africa. At the time the
French began to explore the region, North West Africa was marked by a
complex national and ethnic blend. In addition to people of diverse Berber,
Arab, and sub-Saharan African origin, one could find Jews, Spaniards,
Portuguese, and other Europeans. Some were slaves, while others were
traders or professionals in various fields. For example, a Spaniard of slave
origin known as Pasha Judar commanded the Moroccan army that invaded
the Songhay empire in 1591. A convert to Islam who was raised in the
palace of the sultan, he led a 3,000-man force composed of a mixture of
adventurers from the entire region, Berber troops, and local guides who
knew their way across the Sahara.
In the same way that Pasha Judar assembled his army, it is highly
probable that when crews were recruited by the French to sail south to the
relatively unknown coast of North West and West Africa, those in command
made a point to include at least some experienced sailors and navigators who
knew the region—most likely old hands from neighboring Spain who had
lived in North Africa, Portuguese who had similar experience, or Arabs.
When the captains of these ships went ashore or received African chiefs
aboard ships, the first people they encountered were undoubtedly griots.
Written accounts of meetings between Europeans and chiefs often
emphasize the fact that local rulers were usually preceded by griots, the
people who announced them and who made the most noise with their loud
shouts, songs, and instrumental music. If a captain asked who was the man
making such a racket, the response of those in the crew who had visited the
coast before may well have been a condescending “He is just another
guineo.” It is quite likely that, with a very slight sound shift from [n] to [r],
race became profession: the guineo became a guiriot.
260
THOMAS A. HALE
More research is needed to confirm the theory that guineo is the origin
of griot. But from the foregoing review of other theories and the evidence
assembled so far, it appears quite plausible that griot is indeed a term of
African origin. At the very least, it derives from the Berber word agenaou
and quite probably the root of this term, Ghana, the name of the first great
empire of the Sahel. Although it has certainly passed through European
languages, griot should not be rejected out of hand because of the belief that
it has no connection with Africa.
Ethnospecific terms for griot
Even though it may be of African origin, griot serves mainly to open
the door to a world of wordsmiths that is far more complex than anyone
from Ibn Battuta to Alex Haley could ever imagine. In each African
language there is not only one term for griot, but often several words. In
many cases, there is considerable ambiguity about these local terms because
of overlaps between the profession, the name of the ethnic group, and the
descriptor for the subgroup of artisans. If the diverse theories for the origin
of griot presented in the first part of this study seem to be confusing, the
following list of terms for griots may generate even more ambiguity. But a
closer look will reveal the kinds of patterns described above by Charry that
cut across regional lines.
In Wolof, the general term for griot is géwél, sometimes spelled
guewel. According to the Senegalese sociologist Abdoulaye-Bara Diop, at
one time there existed a complex nomenclature to designate subcategories of
performers depending on the kind of music the performers sang, the
instruments they played, and their behavior in public. Today Diop
recognizes them as blended together under one term. They were the tamakat
(drummers), the xalamkat (players of the stringed xalam), and the gawlo
(singers) (1981:53-54). As will be evident below, the term gawlo occurs in
many other areas of West Africa.
In his description of the Waalo kingdom in the northwestern part of
Senegal, on the border with Mauritania, the Guinean historian Boubacar
Barry, drawing on Raymond Rousseau’s 1929 analysis of Les Cahiers de
Yoro Dyao, the record of a nineteenth-century Wolof aristocrat, describes
griots as part of a group of artisans known by the general name nyeenyo.
On the social ladder within this category, the sab-lekk were musicians and
they included in their ranks the tamakat (a drummer) and the xalmbaan,
who played a violin-like instrument. Barry mentions a third rank, the bawlekk, or griots who act as clowns. They are known as gawlo and géwél
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
261
(1985:67). What Barry describes, however, is a social structure in the past
that is disappearing under the weight of external cultural forces.
As might be expected, the nomenclature for griots among the many
Mandé peoples—the Bamana, Maninka, Dioula, Mandingo, Mandinka,
Khassonké, and others—varies from one part of the region to another.
Throughout the Mandé world griots fall into the general category of
nyamakala, which Conrad and Frank define as a “major professional class of
artists and other occupationally-defined specialists” (1995:1). By artist they
mean not only griots but also blacksmiths, potters, weavers, woodcarvers,
and leatherworkers.
The Mandé area is very large, ranging from Senegal in the west to
Mali in the east. For the Mandinka of the western Mandé in the
Senegambian region, the term for griot is jali (pl. jalolu), with the male
jalike distinguished from the female jalimuso. Jaliya is the profession or
activity of griots. In the central Mandé area, especially in Mali, where the
Bamana and Maninka variants are spoken, the term for griot is jeli (pl.
jeliw). For women the equivalent is jelimuso (pl. jelimusow). The master
singer, male or female, is known as nara or ngara.
Within these broad differences, one finds a variety of subgroups. For
example, among the Khassonké, a Mandé people on the western frontier of
Mali, there were two broad categories of griots, the laada-jalolu, who were
attached to a particular family and therefore benefited from certain
privileges not available to other griots, and the naa, the newcomers or
itinerant griots. A chief griot was a jali-kuntigo (Cissoko 1986:160-61).
The term laada and its variants mean “privilege,” and these words recur
throughout several related areas.
One such area is the Soninké. Throughout this region there are griots
associated with particular groups: the funé (also spelled fina), for instance, is
versed in oral arts associated with Islam (Conrad and Frank 1995:86), while
the donso-jeli, or sora, serves as the griot for hunters by celebrating their
exploits in the field (Cissé 1994:64-65). These bards, however, are different
from griots; for example, they can come from any segment of society
(Johnson and Sisòkò 1986:28-29).
Soninké is related to the Mandé family of languages but remains
somewhat more distant than the others listed above. For this reason the
terms for griot are more distinct. One Soninké word for griot is geseré (pl.
geserun), sometimes spelled gesseré. The Soninké are split into several
large subgroups, and this accounts for the diversity of terms. The term for
griot among the Kusa, for instance, is kusatage, or “smith of the Kusa”
(Meillassoux et al. 1967:13). Fatoumata Siré Diakité explains that geseré
means “griot of the Wage fraction” or subgroup. A master griot, she adds,
262
THOMAS A. HALE
is fade geseré, fade being a term “given to anyone who has acquired a
certain notoriety in what concerns his personal activities” (1977:11). Pollet
and Winter distinguish between the geseré, who may know some history,
and the dyare (also spelled jaare), whose job it is to praise nobles to the
accompaniment of music (1971:217).
These differences reported by scholars who have studied the cultures
of the Soninké-speaking peoples are dwarfed, however, by the complex
terminology collected by Mamadou Diawara, a Malian historian who
conducted an extremely thorough study of the Jaara kingdom that dominated
an area on the Western Mali-Southern Mauritania border in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Diawara, who comes from this region, drew on archival
sources and an extensive range of oral informants to create a highly detailed
portrait of the social structure of the Kingdom of Jaara. Today Jaara is no
more than what he describes as a modest village thirty kilometers eastnortheast of Nioro in Mali. From the tapestry of different kinds of
wordsmiths who served the rulers of Jaara, one can understand the
importance of hierarchy and ethnic or clan origin in defining differences
between griots. It is also clear from Diawara’s research why he believes that
the general term griot should be proscribed (1990:40). The following
summary of information presented in his La graine de la parole (40-46) may
seem overwhelming at first. The purpose here, however, is not to confuse
the reader, but to give some sense of how complex the world of griots can be
in a particular social and historical context.
The laxaranto (s. laxarante), or “people skilled with words,” include
the geseru, the singers and musicians traditionally attached to the aristocracy
of the Ghana empire and more generally serving the Soninké people, the
jaaru (s. jaare), who carry out the same functions for people who are of
Mandé origin but live in the Soninké milieu, and the mancahinlenmu (s.
mancahe), players of stringed instruments who first served marabouts,
Muslim religious leaders, and later expanded the range of their patrons to
include the aristocratic clan of the Jawara.
In addition to these distinctions, Diawara notes other differences
based on whether or not the griots are linked to the nobility in an official
way. The laadan nyaxamalo, for example, serve the court of the ruler, and
within this group one finds the laadan jaaru, or court griots, who serve
people of Mandé origin, the laadan geseru, the court griots who serve the
Soninké, and the mancahinlenmu, who provide instrumental music.
Within the laadan jaaru, there are four subgroups. One is the
sodogarenmu or sodoga, the descendants of Maxa, the only remaining
prince of the Nyaxate clan after a political change in the sixteenth century.
Maxa lost his title and was given the job of taking care of foreigners who
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
263
had allied themselves with the new king, Maamudu. In Soninké, taking care
of someone is called soroga. For this reason, Maxa was called “soroga
Maxa.” Soroga soon evolved into sodoga, and Maxa’s children became
sodogarenmu, or “children of sodoga.”
They became the official
spokespersons for the aristocracy and occupied the highest rank at court.
They did not play instruments, but the women of the clan sang. The
waalemaxannanko, the descendants of Waala Maxa (different from Prince
Maxa of the Nyaxate clan cited above), are of the Koyita clan. Whenever
the scepter of the ruler appeared during a ceremony, they enlivened the event
with songs and dances. They also made public announcements for the court
and served as town criers. They received information from the chief of the
sodoga and then disseminated it.
The third subgroup, the xorobete, arrived at court at the end of the
sixteenth century, during the reign of King Haren Waali. They played the
ganbare, a four-cord lute, and the small dondondonne drum. Their family
names are Dannyoxo for the men and Danba for the women. The last
subgroup is the banbagede of the Tunkara clan. They arrived at court at the
same time as the preceding two groups, although Diawara’s sources do not
make clear exactly how their functions differed from the other griots.
Another group of the laxaranto are the kuttu, who, unlike the laadan
jaaru, are not linked to the aristocracy. The kuttu are composed of geseru
and jaaru who depend upon ordinary people for their livelihood. They may
benefit from princes, but play no official roles for them.
The Soninké-speaking world is composed of peoples who claim
descent from the Ghana empire of the eighth through the eleventh centuries.
Given the age of the empire and the dispersion of many Soninké peoples
throughout West Africa, it is not surprising that they should have so many
terms for griot. As we shall see in the following discussion of Songhay
terms, over the centuries their influence spread quite a distance from
southern Mauritania.
On the right bank of the Niger river in western Niger, the heartland of
the Songhay who fled south from Gao after the fall of the empire in 1591,
the term for griot is jeseré (pl. jeserey) with jeseré-dunka denoting a master
griot and timmé the descendants of master griots. Jeseré-dunka becomes in
many cases the name of the person who simply exercises the profession
(Olivier de Sardan 1982:225-30). The reason for the similarity between the
Songhay and Soninké terms (jeseré and geseré, respectively) is that the ruler
of the Songhay empire in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries,
Askia Mohammed Touré, was probably of Soninké origin (Touré is a
Soninké clan name). When he came to power in 1493, it is likely that
Soninké griots migrated to his court. This would explain why Songhay
264
THOMAS A. HALE
epics were performed for centuries in Soninké, a tradition that survives in
the archaic Soninké terms sprinkled throughout The Epic of Askia
Mohammed, which I recorded in 1981 (see Hale 1990). The Zarma people
of this region, who live primarily on the left bank of the Niger River in
western Niger, speak a dialect of Songhay. But for the most part they use
nyamakaale, the Mandé term for artisans, to designate griots (Olivier de
Sardan 1982:310). This may be the case because, according to their oral
traditions, they migrated from Mali several centuries ago. My own
interviews with more than a score of griots in both the Songhay and Zarma
areas of western Niger turned up no difference between jeseré and
nyamakala or nyamakaale. Finally, for the Songhay the word gawle, which
appears in other societies, denotes the lower-class griot who seeks only to
make money from his songs (Olivier de Sardan 1982:157). Jeserétarey is
the profession of griots.
To the south of the Songhay empire, in the northern Benin region of
Borgou, an area once controlled by the Songhay and heavily influenced by
their culture, Jacques Lombard categorized griots of the Bariba-speaking
peoples in terms of social status (1965:203-14). Those at the bottom are
called gasira, flute players who may praise anyone. At the same level he
lists the yereku, popular singers. A step above them on his scale are the
kororu, hunters’ griots who sing unaccompanied by instruments. The
barabaru, another notch higher, play the drum. Next is the bara sunon, a
high-ranking griot who associates with chiefs, and the gnakpe, the personal
griot of the chief. At the very top of this griot hierarchy is the gesere, who is
attached not simply to the chief but to the throne. The leader of all griots is
the Ba-Gesere. Likewise, the term reported to Moraes Farias during a
decade of research in Northern Benin is geserebà (Moraes Farias 1992,
1993).
Songhay terminology, influenced by Soninké and in turn influencing
other peoples, such as those who speak Bariba in northern Bénin, bridges a
considerable distance in time and space: the Ghana empire of the Soninké
dates from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. Songhay, nearly l,000
kilometers east of Ghana, did not emerge as a power until the fifteenth
century, after the decline of the Mali empire. By contrast, the Fulbe, known
also as the Fulani and the Peul, were responsible for a variety of kingdoms
scattered across West Africa, some of which lasted until the late nineteenth
century. The Fulbe employ a network of terms for griot that further
complicates the nomenclature. There are words that change from one region
to another, from one subgroup to another, and even from one kind of activity
to another.
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
265
For those dwelling in the Futa Toro, a inland region on the left bank
of the Senegal river in northern Senegal, the generic word for griot is
gawlo, or less often mabo. However, farba designates a master griot, while
the awlube knows the genealogy and praises for a particular family (Seydou
1972:15-24). The bambaado (pl. wambaabe) play the hoddar, a lute, or
the nyaa nyooru, a kind of violin. Farther east, these same terms take on
different meanings. The mabo is associated with the nobility while the
gawlo interacts with other elements of society. Interestingly, Seydou, citing
Gaden, suggests that mabo is actually a word of Mandé origin (1972:1920).
One reason for the diversity of terms for Fulbe griots is the great
spread of these people across West Africa from Senegal to northern
Cameroon. In the introduction to their recent collection of essays, Conrad
and Frank offer a fascinating discussion of the ambiguity generated by the
terminology for Fulbe griots (1995:8-9). A summary of their diverse
sources will illustrate the challenge faced by any scholar investigating the
griot world and the roots of griot.
Conrad and Frank cite a Senegalese scholar, Yaya Wane, whose 1969
study of social stratification among the Tukulor of Senegal lists galabés as
griots who sometimes worked in leather, whereas the French researcher Jean
Cremer had seen them in 1923 as simply a category of people from a
particular region, the Futa Jalon. For Cremer, the jawambe (s. jawando)
were Fulbe griots high on the social scale but beneath the mabow, who are
similar to the Mandé jeliw. However, Conrad and Frank also cite a French
anthropologist, Louis Tauxier, who classified Fulbe griots in 1927 as
bambabe or niémmbé. The tyapurtaw, another Fulbe group, were listed by a
third French scholar, Dominique Zahan, as “the lowest class of Bamana
griot, and bards of the Fulbe” (1963:128). The most confusing aspect of the
Fulbe terms mabow/mabubé and jawambe/diawando was the blurring of the
boundaries between professions, classes, and ethnicity. Drawing on a
variety of sources from the past century, Conrad and Frank list a number of
different identities attributed to jawando: courtiers and weavers (Delafosse
1912); griots (Arcin 1907, Cremer 1923); lower-class nobles (Gaden 1931);
businessmen and go-betweens (Moreau 1897); and traders, cattle raisers, and
teachers (Tauxier 1927). One source (Pageard 1959) indicated that the
diawambe were prohibited from acting as griots, and another described them
as “a branch of a Tukulor lineage who speak Fulfulde and are fanatical
Muslims” (Urvoy 1942:25).
The nineteenth-century German traveler Heinrich Barth (1965), note
Conrad and Frank (1995:9), listed the jawambe as a distinct ethnic group
known as the Zoghorân, who were separate at least until the sixteenth
266
THOMAS A. HALE
century, when they became assimilated into Fulbe society. A modern
scholar, the Senegalese historian Ibrahim Bathily, sees them as an ethnic
group with particular professions. He divides the Diawando into several
different groups: the Diawandos, the Lahtimbés (slaves of the Diawando),
and the Kida Mabos, the source of the Mabo griots (1936:191-92). By
matching Bathily’s view with other sources, Conrad and Frank explain that
much of the confusion over the professional activities of the mabow stems
from the fact that as they were being assimilated into the vast Fulbe society,
they took on a variety of social functions ranging from trade to education.
Zahan, they add, found evidence for the mabow as bards among the Bamana,
as tanners and weavers among the Fulbe, and as blacksmiths and bards
among the Tuareg (1995:10).
The terminology for Fulbe griots, then, is highly complex and fluid,
shifting over time and space and depending on the gaze of the classifier and
the migration patterns of a people who have probably covered more territory
than almost any other in West Africa. Mabo and jawando seem to be the
most generally recognized terms, but it is evident from the foregoing
discussion that local context is more important than any system of
classification one might attempt to invent.
By contrast, in some areas the nomenclature appears to be relatively
straightforward. Returning to H. T. Norris’s explanation (1968:35), the
Moor term for a griot is iggiw, sometimes spelled iggio (pl. iggawen). A
female griot is a tiggiwit (pl. tiggawaten). According to Skinner, the Mossi
of Burkina Faso employ the word bendere for griot, and the chief griot is
called bendere naba (1989:35). Geneviève Calame-Griaule describes the
Dogon griot as a genene (1987:487). But the relative simplicity of
terminology available here may simply be due to the lack of research on this
particular aspect of these societies by specialists in music. For example,
farther east, the Hausa-speaking peoples of northern Nigeria and western
Niger designate griots by marok’a, with marok’i (s. masc.) and marok’iya (s.
fem.). But these terms cover a vast and diverse collection of musicians,
some of whom consider themselves to be marok’i, or griot, while others do
not.
In the 1960s, Ames and King studied Hausa musicians in Zaria and
Katsina, two northern Nigerian emirates with very long histories and a
highly stratified ruling class. They produced a list of musicians categorized
by a variety of collective terms, such as mabusa, wind-instrument players;
magu’da, women specializing in celebratory ululating; maka’da, drummers,
understood in the broadest sense of the term; maka’dan Sarki, musicians for
the Emir; marok’an baki, professional acclamators; marok’an hakimi, griots
in the service of a high official; marok’an sarakuna, those who may be in
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
267
the service of any high officeholder, including the Emir; and zabiya,
professional women singers (1971:62-96).
These terms, however, serve only to designate an even longer and
more diverse listing of sixty-four different kinds of musicians divided into
specialized categories. If griot represents the top of the pyramid and local
terms such as jeli and marok’i constitute the supporting ethnic blocks that
are not always evident to those unfamiliar with these wordsmiths, then the
list of performers prepared by Ames and King might be viewed as an
example of the deepest and most complex substratum of these performers’
diverse world. Not all of those listed are still identifiable today. Ames and
King attempt to distinguish between what we might call griot and non-griot
musicians. But it is difficult to separate the two amid the extraordinary
variety of these performers. Ames and King classify them into five
categories: drummers, lutenists, blowers, acclamators, and talkers (1971:70103). There is not enough space to list here the enormous variety of griots,
but suffice it to say that it is doubtful that any other people in West Africa
can claim such a complex nomenclature for the broad category of performers
who either are griots or are related in some way to the activities of the
profession.
Although the activities of marok’a in the Hausa-speaking world do
not match completely those of their counterparts to the east in the more
unified Wolof-Mandé-Songhay region (for example, there is a far less
evident epic tradition), it is clear from Ames and King’s long list that these
griots are very much a part of a regional tradition of musical and verbal art
that extends from Senegal to Lake Chad.
The Tuareg, who live in the Sahara and on the northern fringe of the
Sahel—they are concentrated in northern Mali and Niger as well as in
southern Algeria—do not have a separate griot tradition. But their artisans
who work in metal, wood, and leather, known as inadan (s. ened), carry out
so many of the functions of griots, such as singing songs at weddings and
serving as go-betweens, that they cannot be excluded entirely from any
discussion of the griot world. Most widely known as blacksmiths, these
artisans have so many technical and social functions that this term seems
somewhat limiting (Rasmussen 1995).
Geography of the griot world
The nomenclature described above provides a basis for outlining a
map of the griot world. If the large family of Mandé peoples stands at the
center, and includes Senegal, the Gambia, northern Guinea, and central
268
THOMAS A. HALE
Mali, the fringes will extend northward well into southern Mauritania and
northern Mali. The southern frontier spreads south to northern Sierra Leone,
northern Liberia, northern Côte d’Ivoire, part of Burkina Faso, northern
Benin, and northern Nigeria. To the west, parts of eastern Niger and
northern Cameroon must be included. In these areas one finds societies that
have long supported professional wordsmiths who carry out a variety of
other functions. Although one may find counterparts in societies along the
southern coast of West Africa, the griots of this inland band that stretches
from Senegal to Lake Chad seem to share a common tradition of social
function and verbal art that distinguishes them from those farther south.
This is not to say, however, that one will not encounter griots in those
southernmost areas, especially in the large expatriate communities of
Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire; Accra, Ghana; Lomé, Togo; and Cotonou, Bénin.
Within this vast region, the area that is richest in the griot tradition,
both verbally and musically, appears to be the heartland of the Mali empire,
which includes northern Guinea and southwestern Mali. Whether or not the
profession originated in this region is difficult to tell. But the spread of the
empire and its cultural influence suggests that the dynamic griot tradition
that we know today may have came from this part of West Africa and
diffused to the Senegambian area many centuries ago. Activities such as the
playing of the ngoni, the oldest and most ubiquitous instrument in the griot
world, and the chanting of long narratives that celebrate the past are
common to this region, which includes southern Mali, northern Guinea, most
of Senegal and the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau.
To the east and north the picture changes. The farther away one
travels from the northern Guinea/southwestern Mali heartland, the fewer are
the common features. For example, in eastern Mali there are still griots in
the isolated area around the northern bend of the Niger River, but at the
northern extreme end, around Timbuktu, those who are still performing do
not chant long epics. Downriver from Timbuktu, in western Niger, the long
narratives recounted by jeserey tend to be shorter than those of their Malian
counterparts. Farther east, Hausa griots sing praises, but do not usually
chant long epics about the past.
Why the relative uniformity to the west, and the changes to the east?
One can only speculate about the forces that may have diffused the griot
tradition in the region. Certainly the West was the heartland not only of the
Mali empire but also of a region that represented in many ways the center
of the Sahelian civilization of the Middle Ages. Elements of the Ghana
empire migrated southeast to this and other regions, carrying with them a
rich cultural heritage. This same Mali heartland fell under Songhay
influence for many generations, and the Niger River served as a cultural
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
269
conduit in both directions. But once we move eastward, the cultural thrust
of the civilization represented by Ghana, Mali, and Songhay seems to
undergo a slight shift as we enter another zone of influence. Northern
Nigeria, eastern Niger, Chad, and northern Cameroon were all far more
influenced by Kanem and Bornu of the Lake Chad region. The one cultural
strand that spans these two zones of influence belongs to the Fulbe, who,
bearing with them a heritage that goes back to Ghana and earlier, migrated
eastward for centuries and absorbed other influences along the way. Again,
one can only speculate about the reasons for the changes in the griot
tradition from West to East. But what is more important, differences aside,
is the relative unity of a profession anchored in verbal art, in service to noble
families, and in the symbiotic relationship of word and music.
Griot or jali: Which term to use?
If the map of this world is clearer from the foregoing discussion, the
question of which term to use—one of the many encountered among the
diverse peoples, or simply griot—is not. Diawara and other scholars,
African and non-African, do not like griot because of its ambiguity. It
certainly does not do justice to a profession that is so old and varied. A
simple solution would be to replace it with “bard” or some other term or set
of terms.
That is what the government of Niger tried to do in 1980. On December
18, l979, the President of Niger, Seyni Kountché, complained in his annual
address to the nation about what he saw as economic waste occasioned by
griots. He felt that people were devoting too much of their resources to gifts
for griots at weddings and naming ceremonies. The result of his speech was
an unsuccessful attempt to “sanitize” the profession. A study commissioned
by the government of Niger recommended that the word griot be replaced
with the terms artist, musician, and singer. The authors of the report,
respected scholars, also proposed the establishment of a professional
association, a school to train griots, and the award of medals to the most
talented of them (Hale 1990:42-43). In spite of this attempt at linguistic
change, however, the term griot, like the profession it designates, survives in
Niger today.
Such a negative view of the word griot is nothing new. For a French
official in nineteenth-century Senegal, griots appeared to be a social plague
in the capital city of Saint Louis (Héricé 1847:9). This notion has not
changed much in many cities today. When a naming ceremony is
announced on the radio, the event can attract scores of griots and griottes
270
THOMAS A. HALE
eager to help the parents celebrate the occasion—and collect rewards from
the many relatives who attend and become the subjects of praises. The
linguistic offshoots of griot, griottage, griotique, and griotism, have also
taken on negative connotations in France where, as in West Africa, they
often signify empty praise or praise for pay.
Another reason for the negative connotations attached to griot is the
dominance of the Mandé cultures in West Africa. They cover an area of
West Africa nearly 1,500 kilometers from west to east and almost 1,000
kilometers from north to south. Not all peoples in that area are Mandé, but
the Mandé influence is nevertheless the most extensive. There is a tendency
therefore on the part of the comparatively large number of scholars
interested in these interrelated peoples to take a Mandé-centric view of the
profession and to call for the exclusive use of Mandé terms for griot, jeli and
jali. This stems from both a desire for greater precision and the fact that the
profession of griots is largely populated by Mandé jeliw and jalolu from the
region. But this ethnocentric view of the griot world also comes from a
general lack of information about non-Mandé griots in surrounding countries
such as Mauritania, Niger, and Benin, as well as among non-Mandé groups
scattered throughout the region (the Fulbe, for example).
For two major reasons, however, it seems inevitable that griot will
continue to serve as the generic term for these wordsmiths. First, the word
griot has spread into many parts of the African diaspora, in particular the
Caribbean and the United States, taking on extremely positive connotations
for those who see the profession as a link to their ancestors. African
Americans have assumed the role of the griot to read excerpts of the
Sundiata epic at Kwanzaa ceremonies each year in December. One finds
both excerpts from this text and references to griots in books on this annual
African American celebration (Riley 1995, Harris 1995). Distinguished
African American musicians and scholars have sometimes been compared in
print to griots, while both the mayor of the city of Baltimore and the
governor of the state of Maryland have named an official griot, Mary Carter
Smith (Smith 1996). Finally, as a result of the Roots phenomenon, griot has
entered the vocabulary of African Americans to such an extent that it would
be impossible to try to suppress it. Like the widely traveling wordsmiths
themselves, the term griot has taken on a life of its own since the
seventeenth century and is becoming recognized around the world.
Second, the regional nature of the terms griot and griotte underscore
the fact that the profession carries out some of the oldest and most
important cultural activities, activities that link many diverse peoples,
including those that are not related to the Mandé. The words are useful
reminders of what Paul Stoller has identified as deep Sahelian and Savanna
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
271
civilization (Hale and Stoller 1985). Like so many other crossculturally
generated words in the Sahel, griot has come, then, to serve the needs of
West Africans who must communicate with each other across numerous
linguistic frontiers within Africa as well as with peoples outside of the
continent, be they African or non-African. As with other regional words
imbedded in West African languages, griot has traveled across much of the
continent and found a home in the modern French and, to a lesser extent, the
English spoken by many West African peoples. The fact that only a
minority of the populations in these countries speaks these European
languages does not affect the griot’s role in them.
How, then, can one reconcile the ambiguity of griot, a term with
probable African roots, and the specificity of such ethnically rooted words as
jali? The answer is that by using both griot/griotte and the more precise
words, scholars can more effectively bridge the gap in knowledge about the
oral tradition for those outside of West Africa. At the same time, the
adoption of griot/griotte signals to those who are unaware of the existence of
jelimusow and their sisters in neighboring West African cultures that women
also play an active role in the profession (see Hale 1994).
The use of both kinds of terms, the general and the specific, provides
the regional framework into which discussions of different kinds of griots—
past and present griots, griots from various ethnic groups, griots who
perform different functions—can be conducted. This solution allows the
varied audiences for griots to hold on to what they value. At the same time,
such an approach will facilitate the diffusion of knowledge about griots as
important components in the regional fabric of the Sahel and the Savanna.1
Pennsylvania State University
1
Research on griots for this and other publications was supported by grants from
the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Information Agency, and
the American Philosophical Society, as well as from several units at Penn State: the
Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies, the College of the Liberal Arts, the French
Department, and the Comparative Literature Department.
272
THOMAS A. HALE
References
Ames and King 1971
David W. Ames and Anthony V. King. Glossary of Hausa
Music and Its Social Contexts. Evanston: Northwestern
University Press.
Anonymous 1977
Anonymous. “Why Roots Hit Home.” Time, 14 Feb.:6871.
Arcin 1907
André Arcin. La Guinée française. Paris: Challamel.
al-Bakri 1911
Abu Ubayd ’Abd Allah b. ’Abd al-’Aziz al-Bakri. Kitab
al-masalik wa-’l-mamalik [Description de l’Afrique
septentrionale]. Ed. by Baron MacGuckin de Slane.
Algiers. [Excerpted in Levtzion and Hopkins 1981:62-87.]
Barry 1985
Boubacar Barry. Le royaume du Waalo: le Sénégal avant
la conquête. 2nd ed. Paris: Karthala.
Barth 1965
Heinrich Barth. Travels and Discoveries in North and
Central Africa in the Years 1849-1855. New York: Harper.
Bathily 1936
Ibrahim Bathily.
“Les Diawandos ou Diogoramés:
traditions orales receuillies à Djenné, Corientze, Ségou et
Nioro.” Education Africaine, 25:173-93.
Batoutah [Battuta] 1859
Ibn Batoutah. Voyages d’Ibn Batoutah.
Defrémery and B. R. Sanguinetti. Paris.
Bérenger-Féraud 1882
L. J. B. Bérenger-Féraud. “Etude sur les griots des
peuplades de la Sénégambie.” Revue d’Anthropologie,
série s., 50:266-79.
Bird 1971
Charles S. Bird. “Oral Art in the Mande.” In Papers on
the Manding. Ed. by Carleton T. Hodge. Bloomington:
Research Center for the Language Sciences, Indiana
University. pp. 15-23.
Bovill 1995
Edward William Bovill. The Golden Trade of the Moors:
West African Kingdoms in the Fourteenth Century. 2nd ed.
Princeton: Wiener.
Calame-Griaule 1987
Geneviève Calame-Griaule. Ethnologie et langage: la
parole chez les Dogon. Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie.
Ed. by C.
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
273
Camara 1976
Sory Camara. Gens de la parole. Essai sur la condition et
le rôle des griots dans la société malinké. Paris: Mouton.
Charry 1992
Eric Charry. “Musical Thought, History, and Practice
Among the Mande of West Africa.” Ph.D. Dissertation,
Princeton University.
Cissé 1994
Youssouf Tata Cissé. La confrérie des chasseurs malinké
et bambara: mythes, rites et récits initiatiques. Ivry:
Nouvelles du Sud.
Cissoko 1986
Sékéné-Mody Cissoko. Contribution à l’histoire politique
du Khasso dans le Haut-Sénégal des origines à 1854.
Paris: Harmattan.
Conrad 1981
David C. Conrad. “The Role of Oral Artists in the History
of Mali.” Ph.D. Dissertation, School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London.
Conrad and Frank 1995
and Barbara E. Frank, eds. Status and Identity in
West Africa: Nyamakalaw of Mande.
Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Cremer 1923
Jean Henri Cremer. Matériaux d'ethnographie et de
linguistique soudanaises. Vol. I: Dictionnaire françaispeul. Paris: Geuthner.
Delafosse 1912
Maurice Delafosse. Haut-Sénégal-Niger. Paris: Larose.
Diakité 1977
Fatoumata Siré Diakité. “The Oral Tradition of the Geseres
in Mali.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Ecole Normale Supérieure,
Bamako.
Diawara 1990
Mamadou Diawara. La graine de la parole. Stuttgart:
Steiner.
Diop 1981
Abdoulaye-Bara Diop. La société wolof: tradition et
changement. Paris: Karthala.
Dozy 1967
R. Dozy. Supplément aux Dictionnaires Arabes. 2 vols.
3rd ed. Paris: G. P. Maisonneuve et Larose.
Fernandes 1951
Valentim Fernandes. Description de la côte occidentale
d’Afrique (Sénégal au Cap de Monte, Archipels). Ed. and
trans. by Theodore Monod, A. Teixeira de Mota, and Robert
274
THOMAS A. HALE
Mauny. Bissau: Centro de Estudos da Guiné Portuguesa,
no. 11.
Gaden 1931
Henri Gaden. Proverbes et maximes Peuls et Toucouleurs.
Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie.
Guignard 1975
Michel Guignard. Musique, honneur, et plaisir au Sahara.
Paris: Geuthner.
Hale 1990
Thomas A. Hale. Scribe, Griot and Novelist: Narrative
Interpreters of the Songhay Empire. Followed by The Epic
of Askia Mohammed Recounted by Nouhou Malio.
Gainesville: University of Florida Press and Center for
African Studies.
Hale 1994
. “Griottes of the Sahel: Female Voices from West
Africa.”
Research in African Literatures, 25, iii:7191.
Hale 1998
. Griots and Griottes: Masters of Words and Music.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hale and Malio 1996
and Nouhou Malio.
The Epic of Askia
Mohammed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hale and Stoller 1985
and Paul Stoller. “Oral Art, Society, and Survival
in the Sahel Zone.” In African Literature Studies: The
Present State / L’Etat présent. Ed. by Stephen Arnold.
Washington and Edmonton: Three Continents Press,
African Literature Association, and Institute for Research
in Comparative Literature. pp. 163-69.
Haley 1976
Alex Haley. Roots: The Saga of an American Family.
Garden City, NJ: Doubleday.
Harris 1995
Jessica B. Harris. A Kwanzaa Keepsake: Celebrating the
Holiday with New Traditions and Feasts. New York:
Simon and Schuster.
Heinen 1995
Tom Heinen. “Unrestrained. Terkel Tells It As He Sees
It.” Milwaukee Sentinel Journal, 21 Oct.
Héricé 1847
M. Héricé. Mémoire presenté à M. le Ministre de la
Marine et des colonies, relativement à quelques
améliorations à porter à la colonie du Sénégal. Paris:
Plon.
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
275
Hoffman 1990
Barbara Hoffman. “The Power of Speech: Language and
Social Status Among Mande Griots and Nobles.” Ph.D.
Dissertation, Indiana University.
Hoffman 1995
. “Power, Structure, and Mande Jeliw.” In Status
and Identity in West Africa: Nyamakalaw of Mande. Ed by
David C. Conrad and Barbara E. Frank. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press. pp. 36-57.
Ibn Hawqal 1938-39
Abu ’l-Qasim al-Nusaybi Ibn Hawqal. Kitab Surat al-ard.
Ed. by J. H. Kramers. Leiden. [Excerpted in Levtzion and
Hopkins 1981:43-52.]
Johnson and Sisòkò 1986
John William Johnson and Fa-Digi Sisòkò. The Epic of
Son-Jara: A West African Tradition. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Labouret 1951
Henri Labouret.
Africaines, 50:56.
La Courbe 1913
Michel Jajolet de La Courbe. Premier voyage du Sieur de
La Courbe fait à la coste d’Afrique en 1685. Ed. by P.
Cultru. Paris: Champion/LaRose.
Lane 1956
Edward William Lane. Arabic-English Lexicon. 8 vols.
with suppl. New York: Frederick Ungar.
Le Brasseur 1778
“Détails historiques et politiques sur la religion, les moeurs
et le commerce des peuples qui habitent la côte occidentale
d’Affrique depuis l’Empire du Maroc jusqu’aux rivières de
Casamance et de Gambie. Redigés et presentés à Son
Altesse Sérénissime Monsieur le Duc de Penthièvre Amiral
de France par Mr. Le Brasseur Commissaire ordonnateur
Ancien Commandant pour le Roi et administrateur Général
des possessions françaises à la Côte occidentale d’Affrique
au mois de juin 1778 à Rambouillet.” MS at Bibliothèque
Nationale de France.
Levtzion 1980
Nehemia Levtzion. Ancient Ghana and Mali. 2nd ed.
New York: Africana.
“A Propos du mot griot.”
Levtzion 1995a
. Conversation, 6 Nov.
Levtzion 1995b
. Personal communication, 23 Nov.
Notes
276
THOMAS A. HALE
Levtzion and Hopkins 1981
and J. F. P. Hopkins. Corpus of Early Arabic
Sources for West African History. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Lombard 1965
Jacques Lombard. Structures de type ‘féodal’ en Afrique
noire: étude des dynamismes internes et des relations
sociales chez les Bariba du Dahomey. Paris: Mouton.
McIntosh 1995
Roderick McIntosh. Personal communication, 27 Nov.
McIntosh and McIntosh ______ and Susan Keech
McIntosh. “The Inland Niger 1981 Delta Before the
Empire of Mali: Evidence from Jenne-Jeno.” Journal of
African History, 22:1-22.
Meillassoux et al. 1967
Claude Meillassoux, Lassana Doucouré, and Diaowé
Simagha. La légende de la dispersion des Kusa. Dakar:
Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire.
C. Monteil 1951
Charles Monteil. “Problèmes du Soudan Occidental: Juifs
et Judaïsés.” Hespéris, 38:265-98.
V. Monteil 1968
Vincent Monteil. “Un cas d’économie ostentatoire: les
griots d’Afrique noire.” Economies et Sociétés, 2:773-91.
Moraes Farias 1992
Paulo de Moraes Farias. “Praise as Intrusion and as
Foreign Language: A Sunjata Paradigm Seen from the
Gesere Diaspora in Béninois Borgu.” Unpub. paper
presented 11/15/92 at the Sunjata Conference.
Northwestern University.
Moraes Farias 1993
. Interview, 18 June.
Moreau 1897
J. L. M. Moreau. “Notice générale sur le Soudan: 2ème
partie, ethnologie.” Archives Nationales du Mali, ID-19.
Norris 1968
H. T. Norris. Shinqiti Folk Literature and Song. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Olivier de Sardan 1982
Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan. Concepts et conceptions
songhay-zarma. Paris: Nubia.
Ortiz 1924
Fernando Ortiz. Glosario de Afronegrismos. Habana: El
Siglo XX.
Pace 1992
Eric Pace. “Alex Haley, 70, Author of ‘Roots,’ Dies.”
New York Times, 11 Feb.:B8.
FROM THE GRIOT OF ROOTS TO THE ROOTS OF GRIOT
277
Pageard 1959
Robert Pageard. “Note sur les Diawambé ou Diokoramé.”
Journal de la Société des Africanistes, 29:239-60.
Panzacchi 1994
Cornelia Panzacchi. “The Livelihoods of Traditional Griots
in Modern Senegal.” Africa, 64:190-210.
Pâques 1991
Viviana Pâques. La Religion des esclaves: recherches sur
la confrérie marocaine des Gnawa. Bergamo: Moretti and
Vitali.
Pollet and Winter 1971
Eric Pollet and Grace Winter.
La société soninké.
Brussels: Institut de Sociologie, Université Libre de
Bruxelles.
Rasmussen 1995
Susan Rasmussen. “Between Ritual, Theatre, and Play:
Blacksmith Praise at Tuareg Marriage.” Unpub. paper
presented at the African Studies Association Meeting
Orlando, FL. November 3-695.
Riley 1995
Dorothy Winbush Riley.
The Complete Kwanzaa:
Celebrating Our Cultural Harvest.
New York:
HarperCollins.
Rousseau 1929
Raymond Rousseau. “Le Sénégal d’autrefois. Etude sur le
Oualo.” Cahiers de Yoro Dyâo: Bulletin de commerce,
d’etudes, d’histoire et de science en Afrique Occidentale
française, 1-2:133-211.
Saint-Lô 1637
Alexis de Saint-Lô.
Paris: Targa.
Schuyler 1981
Phillp D. Schuyler. “Music and Meaning among the
Gnawa Religious Brotherhood of Morocco.” The World of
Music, 23:3-11.
Seydou 1972
Christiane Seydou. Silâmaka et Poullôri: récit épique peul
raconté par Tinguidji. Paris: Colin.
Skinner 1989
Elliott P. Skinner. The Mossi of Burkina Faso: Chiefs,
Politicians and Soldiers. 2nd ed. Prospect Heights, IL:
Waveland.
Smith 1996
Mary Carter Smith. Conversation, 4 Jan.
Tauxier 1927
Louis Tauxier. La religion bambara. Paris: Geuthner.
Tauxier 1937
Relation du voyage du Cap-Verd.
. Moeurs et histoire des Peuls. Paris: Payot.
278
THOMAS A. HALE
Urvoy 1942
Yves Urvoy. Petit atlas ethno-démographique du Soudan.
Paris: Larose.
Wane 1969
Yaya Wane. Les Toucouleurs du Fouta Tooro (Sénégal):
stratification sociale et structure familiale. Dakar: Institut
Fondamental d’Afrique Noire.
Watta 1985
Oumarou Watta. “The Human Thesis: A Quest for
Meaning in African Epic.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University
of Buffalo.
Zahan 1963
Dominique Zahan. La dialectique du verbe chez les
Bambara. Paris: Mouton.